mesguerr@athena.mit.edu (Manuel Esguerra) (04/13/91)
Newsgroups: bionet.neuroscience Subject: Re: Attention, Neurochemically Speaking Summary: thalamus role in selective attention References: <gbzvT0i00WBM824l82@andrew.cmu.edu> <23933@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <40953@netnews.upenn.edu> Sender: mesguerr@athena.mit.edu <Manuel Esguerra> Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keywords: thalamus, lateral geniculate,attention Here are some papers on the possible role of thalamus in gating of sensory input,particularly wrt selective visual attention: Sherman, S. M., and Koch, C. (1986). The control of retinogeniculate transmission in the mammalian lateral geniculate nucleus. Exp. Brain Res. 63: 1-20. Discusses the functional states (transfer and burst mode) of thalamic cells, how they might be switched on and off, and speculates on functional significance. Koch, C. (1987). The action of the corticofugal pathway on sensory thalamic nuclei: a hypothesis. Neuroscience 23: 399-406. The lateral geniculate is the major target of retinal cell axons, but this nucleus actually gets a much larger input from visual cortex (10 times more fibers than from retina) via a feedback projection. This paper proposes that activity in this projection could jack up the firing of selected portions of the visual representation, perhaps for selective visual attention. ======================================== Manuel Esguerra Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MIT mesguerr@athena.mit.edu esguerra@ai.mit.edu ========================================